Brawley v. McNary
| Decision Date | 11 June 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 73185,73185 |
| Citation | 811 S.W.2d 362 |
| Parties | John BRAWLEY, Eldridge Lovelace, David Schlessinger and Patricia S. Martin, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Gene McNARY, County Executive, St. Louis County, Missouri, et al., Defendants-Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Mark Brittingham, Robert O. Snyder, J. Peter Schmitz, St. Louis, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Thomas W. Wehrle, County Counselor, Andrew J. Minardi, Assoc. County Counselor, Clayton, for St. Louis County.
Mark G. Arnold, Shulamith Simon, St. Louis, for Riverport.
This case involves the authority of the St. Louis County Council to expend funds under authority granted by the General Assembly in Sections 94.600-.655, RSMo 1986, relating to expenditures from the Transportation Trust Fund, and Sections 50.020 and 50.030, RSMo 1986, relating to the authority of a county to dispose of a special fund which is no longer needed for the purposes for which that fund was created. The trial court determined that the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their action, but despite that determination, proceeded to decide the case on the merits. The Court of Appeals, Eastern District, affirmed the trial court's decision that the plaintiff taxpayers lacked standing to challenge the County's expenditure of the funds in question. This Court reversed the trial court's decision, holding that the plaintiffs did have standing and retransferred the case to the Court of Appeals for consideration of the trial court's decision on the merits. Eastern Missouri Laborers District Council v. St. Louis County, 781 S.W.2d 43 (Mo. banc 1989). On retransfer, a divided panel of the court of appeals affirmed the trial court's decision. We granted transfer because of the general interest and importance of the issues raised by the case and have jurisdiction. Mo. Const. art. V, § 10. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
From 1976 until 1984, transient guests of hotels and motels in St. Louis County paid the County a three percent tourism tax, under authority of Section 66.390, RSMo 1986. This tourism tax was collected into a convention and tourism fund established by county ordinance. In 1984, the voters of St. Louis City and St. Louis County approved the collection of a new "convention and visitors" sales tax under Section 67.619, RSMo 1986, and the creation of a Regional Convention and Visitors Commission composed of members appointed by the executive officers of both the City and the County. With the adoption of the new tax, Section 67.619.5(2) prohibited the levy or collection of the convention and tourism tax permitted under Section 66.390.
Also at issue in this case are sales taxes levied pursuant to Section 94.605 by St. Louis County (the County) "for transportation purposes." Section 94.645 mandates that all monies collected under the transportation tax be put into a "Transportation Trust Fund" and that those monies "shall be appropriated and disbursed only for transportation purposes."
On November 26, 1985, the St. Louis County Council passed a series of four ordinances pertaining to the funds at issue in this case. The first ordinance declared that the funds remaining unexpended in the St. Louis County Convention and Tourism Fund were no longer needed for the purposes for which they were raised. The ordinance purported to transfer $1 million (of a $3,388,302 balance) from the Convention and Tourism Fund into the county's general revenue fund. The second ordinance appropriated $1 million from the general revenue fund to the special projects account, for use in the purchase of approximately 102 acres within the Riverport Project area. A third ordinance appropriated $3 million from the Transportation Trust Fund and transferred it to the Transportation Highway Fund for contribution for the construction of a flood control system around the 102 acre site. The final ordinance authorized the county executive to purchase the land from Riverport, Inc., for $1 million and authorized the county to use up to $3 million to construct a levee, relief wells and pumping stations for flood protection of the Riverport Project area and surrounding roadways.
Under authority of these ordinances, the trial court found that on December 12, 1985, St. Louis County entered into a contract with Riverport, Inc., providing for the County's purchase of approximately 102 of the 522 acres in the Riverport Project. The County intended to use the land as the site of a sports stadium, apparently for purposes that included an attempt to dissuade the St. Louis Football Cardinals of the National Football League from migrating to Arizona. In addition to the purchase of the acreage, the December 12, 1985 contract obligated the County to pay $3 million toward the cost of the construction of a levee, relief wells and a pumping station (the flood control measures). The land within the Riverport Project area lies within the flood plain of the Missouri River and is subject to flooding. The trial court found that the levee, relief wells and pumping station were required "for flood protection of the Earth City Expressway and the stadium and supporting facilities." The trial court's finding was apparently based in part on the stipulation entered between the parties that "a levee, relief wells and pumping station have been built to protect the adjacent roadways and the property from flooding from the Missouri River."
The trial court also found that the total cost of the flood control measures was approximately $7,771,583. Further, the trial court found that the Earth City Expressway is located between Interstate 70 and the Pritchard Farm Road in the flood plain of the Missouri River, that the Earth City Expressway is an arterial road owned and maintained by St. Louis County and that prior to the construction of the flood control measures, the expressway flooded, requiring the diversion of a substantial volume of traffic, which in the absence of flooding, used the expressway for access to Pritchard Farm Road and Creve Coeur Mill Road to the south and St. Charles Rock Road to the north. The trial court found that the construction of the flood control measures "was the least expensive method of flood-proofing Earth City Expressway between I-70 and Pritchard Farm Road" and that the county's contribution to the construction of that levee was but a portion of the total cost of the construction. Our calculation fixes the County's contribution at approximately 38.6 percent of the cost.
The taxpayers challenge several of the trial court's findings of fact asking this Court to discount those factual findings that are detrimental to their legal argument. However, as this was a court tried case, we defer to the trial court's findings of fact, given the trial court's superior ability to judge the credibility of witnesses, Rule 73.01(c)(2), and affirm the trial court's judgment unless it is not supported by substantial evidence, is against the weight of the evidence, or erroneously declares the law. Murphy v. Carron, 536 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Mo. banc 1976).
Section 50.020 permits the governing body of a county to transfer to the credit of its general revenue fund "the balance in any county treasury in this state to the credit of any special fund, which is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was raised." Section 50.030 limits the authority of the county legislative body to transfer balances of special funds to circumstances in which "the objects of their creation are and have been fully satisfied." The taxpayers assign initial error to the trial court's holding that the County Council had authority pursuant to these statutes to transfer $1 million of the $3,388,302 balance in the convention and tourism fund to the county's general revenue fund.
The money reposed in the convention and tourism fund arrived there through the levy and collection of the tax authorized under Section 66.390. The convention and tourism fund was county money, subject to appropriation by the County Council "for no other purposes than set forth in Section 66.395." Section 66.398, RSMo 1986. Section 66.395 permitted use of the funds for three purposes: (1) to promote convention and tourism business; (2) to work with other agencies, bureaus, boards, and associations to promote a convention and tourism business; and (3) to contract with others for the furnishing of service and supplies connected with the promotion of convention and tourism business.
With the voters' approval of the tax permitted in Section 67.619, the County's convention and tourism duties ended. The County's tourism duties were undertaken by the Regional Convention and Visitors Commission (the Commission). Section 67.619.5 prohibited further collection of the convention and tourism tax by the County upon the adoption of the new regional convention and visitors sales tax.
The Commission is empowered by Section 67.607, RSMo 1986, to perform nine specified categories of acts, the first three of which are essentially identical to and serve the purposes of the convention and tourism tax previously collected by the County under Section 66.390. Taxes collected under Section 67.619 are not County funds and are not subject to County Council appropriation. Instead, Section 67.619 taxes are held by the Commission and expended pursuant to a majority vote of the Commission. Section 67.611, RSMo 1986.
We conclude, as did the trial court and a unanimous panel of the court of appeals, that with the establishment of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Visitors Commission, St. Louis County's needs for promotion of convention and tourism business were met. Thus, it was altogether appropriate for the County Council to determine that "the objects of [the special fund's] creation are and have been fully satisfied." Section 50.030, RSMo 1986. It was also appropriate for the County Council to determine that the balance of...
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